Don't Kill the Birthday Girl (21 page)

The trip was rumored to be both epic and exhausting. Most tourists, upon arrival in Hana, start planning their return trip within hours. Otherwise they risk getting stranded by darkness. The locals call them “whizzers.”

If the possibility of taking the Road to Hana had been raised on earlier trips, my mother must have vetoed it. She believes men (e.g., my father) are innately programmed to find a beautiful beach spot, rent a house … and then plan day after day of activities that prevent anyone (e.g., my mother) from getting to lie out in the sun, relax, and read even one of the three paperback novels she would have optimistically packed in her luggage. Car trips were a necessary evil, not an adventure.
Besides
, I could imagine her saying to my dad,
who knows where we'll find a restaurant for Sandra?

But on this particular trip, the scales had tipped. I was older, confident in my ability to navigate any café menu. My mother managed to sunburn her chest on the first day, making the lounge chair less appealing. My father had invited along his law partner, James, who had brought his girlfriend Kim, and they had rented a black convertible whose suspension was tailor-made for six hundred-plus tight turns. My father had made sure our rental could keep up, upgrading to a six-cylinder engine. We were going.

We'd been warned it was a three-hour drive. It seemed impossible that sixty-some miles could take that long. Yet after the first hour, it was clear we had no control over our speed, since there were no passing lanes—and no option of turning back, since there were no intersections. The rusted vans and pickups ahead of us seemed to be running on molasses. The only thing worse were the cars driven by the island's resident meth-head population, periodically barreling down on us in the opposite direction.

After one near sideswipe by a powder-blue lowrider (the driver wild-eyed and flashing us his middle finger, his seven-year-old son grinning from the passenger seat), we saw a handmade sign for t
WIN FALLS
. We pulled over, grateful for the chance to stretch our legs.

“How far to the water?” we asked a family threading their way out of the woods.

“Not too far,” they said.

The trek turned out to be a half mile (balancing single-file on an iron train tie at one point), culminating in the chance to jump into the falls or swing out, by rope, over a natural pool. It was beautiful, but it made clear how isolated we were from the accoutrements of tourism. We'd expected signage for other scenic spots—the tide pools, the black-sand beaches—but this hand-scrawled piece of cardboard was as close as we'd get. There were no restrooms, no stands where I could buy fresh pineapple for a snack, and no places to get film or bug spray.

Back in the car, we were lulled into silence by the increasingly exotic foliage revealed with each switchback. For a long stretch, the Road to Hana threads along a canyon drop-off straight out of the Jurassic era. We passed through a patch of
“painted” rainbow gum trees, each trunk's pedestrian-gray outer bark peeling off to reveal patches of mint green, neon pink, and orange.

On the road went … and went … and went. I slouched down so my sister could tip her head against my shoulder, and she dozed off. Sometimes we'd zip over a bridge, not realizing until we'd crossed it that we had missed a place to pull over and see a waterfall.

“We'll stop on the way back,” my mother said hopefully.

We were ready for Hana. We were now snaking along open coast, hundreds of feet above sea level, with the occasional small village twinkling far below. We hadn't passed a single restaurant. I had eaten as many almonds as I could manage and had drunk two cans of soda, and my stomach was still growling.

A few minutes into Hour Four, we passed the first sign we'd seen in ten miles.

THE ROAD TO HANA IS ABOUT THE JOURNEY, NOT THE DESTINATION
, it said.

This was a nice way of warning that when you arrive in Hana, what you'll find is a dowdy stretch of dirt road. The “Historic Courthouse and Jail” turned out to be a wooden shack with an outhouse that was designed to be padlocked from the outside. Did it double as a jail cell?

A deep-tanned man in a torn T-shirt sat in a pickup truck in the otherwise deserted parking lot. We asked where we could get a meal.

“There's one place,” he said, pointing down the road. “Hana Ranch.”

We piled back in the car. But before we could make the prescribed
turn, my father spotted what seemed to be a gas station, the first in hours. Not sure how late it would stay open, he overruled our objections and steered toward it.

Rounding a hill, a huge lava-rock cross loomed to our right: Fagan's Cross, a memorial to the man who brought cattle ranching to Hana.

“Oh my God,” I said. “It's gorgeous.”

I wasn't talking about the cross. To our left, just beyond the station, was a collection of creamy-walled, thatch-roofed buildings, a curving private driveway, and an ornate, multitier fountain. We had stumbled across the Hotel Hana-Maui and Honua Spa, which has to be the most incongruously located four-star resort in the United States.

Another time we might have hesitated to walk in, given our wrinkled clothes and our dusty shoes, but we were too grateful to be self-conscious, and they were too deserted to be snooty. There was a gift shop. There was a marble-floored ladies' room. Everywhere there were big, fresh flower arrangements of pro-tea and birds-of-paradise. Within minutes we were seated in the Paniolo Lounge's big, soft chairs, menus in our laps.

“Will you be having drinks this evening?” the waiter asked.

“Yes,” chorused every adult in unison.

If only the story ended after they brought that round of drinks to the table, complete with an umbrella for Christina's lemonade. Or if the story ended with the food, including the salad I'd ordered (determined to stay on my bikini diet), and the Kobe burgers that had James and my father raving over their flavor. Or even with the French fries I'd given in and ordered on the side, upon resolving that no one should try to diet on a road trip.

Unfortunately, after I ate my fries, I ate my mother's. After I ate hers, James held his plate out toward me.

“You want these?” he asked.

I took them. Was I even hungry at that point? Or was I just on Allergy Girl autopilot, eating for the ride home? I took them from his burger-tainted plate, and I ate them.

Ten minutes later, it was Christina who pointed out that I'd grown quiet, breathing shallowly and quickly through my mouth. They moved me from the plushy chair in the restaurant to a plushy chair in the lobby; I remember the firm press of upholstery against my back, and not much else. The concierge brought me cup after cup of cold water, poured from a pitcher garnished with hibiscus.

My father spoke in hushed tones with the hotel manager, who confirmed his fear. If things got worse, there was no emergency medical facility in Hana. To the east, there was only Charles Lindbergh's grave and miles of deserted national park.

We would have to leave right away, and we would have to take the road back the way we came.

My father is a decorated army veteran. There are plenty of stories out there to prove his stoicism under fire. But there has to be a special medal for making a three-hour drive in the dark, his oldest daughter in the backseat in a Benadryled haze—and not one hairpin turn he can afford to miss.

•  •  •

If traveling with food allergies within the country is difficult, traveling outside the country can be harrowing. Not to mention expensive, if something goes wrong. Most health insurance
does not cover travel outside the United States, and most add-on international insurance plans do not cover allergic reactions, because they are considered a preexisting condition—even if they have never been previously diagnosed. Using your first time in Tokyo to try sea urchin? Probably not the best idea, if you have any history of seafood allergies. Neither is sampling the street food in Bangkok, no matter how mind-blowing Anthony Bourdain proclaims it to be.

The simplest dictate is that you should not venture into an area where your allergen is pervasive in the cuisine. I will never go to southern India, where everything from the roti to the tandoori chicken is made with dairy. But in northern India, where coconut milk is used instead, I could probably fare well.

In December 2001, our family's upcoming trip to Italy got a lot less scary once my father spoke to a native who assured him that flurrying every dish in Parmesan is an Italian-American affectation, and not the way of the old country. In fact, Italian tradition specifically prohibits serving fish and cheese together. (There is no definitive reason behind the taboo; if asked, many chefs state that it is because the pungency of cheese will overwhelm the delicate flavor of fish. My favorite theory is that because Italy's premiere cheese-making regions—Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna—are landlocked, the two specialties never met until many of Italy's culinary traditions had already been set.)

I've outgrown packing loaves of bread and eight-inch knives when I travel. Instead, I arm myself with a slip of paper, worded in whatever the common language is of the land I am visiting, that outlines my allergy issues. There are companies that will create these for you, such as Allerglobal and SelectWisely,
usually for eight to nine dollars a pop. I'd skip that. The more generic and commercialized the warning appears, the less closely (I think) the waiter reads it. Besides, you don't want to bring a laminated card you have to fuss over retrieving. You want to bring a disposable, dispensable stack. They are business cards, in the sense that you are in the business of surviving this meal.

You can use one of those free online translation programs to create the text, but make sure to get it proofed by someone who speaks the language. There's a world of difference between handing someone a slip of paper that explains “Eggs are bad for me,” and handing them a note that declares “My eggs are bad.” It's helpful, too, to offer a few constructive guidelines; e.g., a list of oils that can be used to cook your food safely.

Even when there is not a language barrier, there are cultural obstacles to discerning reactions. In the United States, if someone were to begin wheezing and clutching at his throat soon after eating fish, eggs, or cow's milk, bystanders might leap to the possibility of allergic reaction and respond appropriately. They will know to call an ambulance and check the victim's bag for Benadryl or an epinephrine injector. Our awareness is primed. But the British, whose allergies to these foods are relatively uncommon, might not make the same logical leap. On the other hand, discomfort after eating hazelnuts—or peaches or apples—would raise the red flag.

Back to Italy. When my cousin Sara became engaged to Roderico, a member of the Arma dei Carabinieri, we were determined to attend their New Year's Eve 2001 wedding in Rome. Sara helped my mother translate a paragraph that listed my allergies. We rented a cold-water flat that included a full kitchen. I invited my then boyfriend to make the trip with us. I
was a romantic, excited at the thought of having a real date to the black-tie ceremony at the Hotel Majestic Roma (the same hotel that, forty years earlier, had provided background scenes for Fellini's
La Dolce Vita
). My boyfriend, a Francophile, was excited at being there on the day Italy changed over to the euro.

Upon arriving in Rome, we picked up the rental car, a European model that fit all five of us only after some elaborate clown contortions. We got on the road and promptly almost missed our first two roundabout exits. It was then my father admitted, begrudgingly, that his eyesight was “a little off.” He had gotten laser eye surgery less than two weeks before—without telling any of us—meaning he could only barely make out the signs in English, much less Italian. My boyfriend was unexpectedly drafted to play navigator to the very grumpy Brigadier General Beasley.

The evening of the wedding, I put on a long, black velvet column dress. We all crammed into the car once more, finding our way to Via Vittorio Veneto and the Majestic. It was easy to imagine Anita Ekberg skipping down the marble steps that anchored the hotel's Palladian facade. Inside, the salmon-pink walls of the room where Sara and Rodie were to be married shimmered with gold stenciling and sage-green draperies. Almost all of the family on my mother's side had made the flight overseas. We toasted a successful trip. Sara and Rodie said “I do.” We drank more wine.

The wedding dinner was an elaborate, multicourse feast. Sara had worked painstakingly with the caterers to ensure a special meal for me, and everything was perfect up until the dessert—a cup of fresh fruit that someone, without even thinking, had strewn with butter-toasted almonds. I took two bites,
then a Benadryl, before excusing myself to the bathroom. It was another fifteen minutes, when I had not returned, before my boyfriend figured out something was wrong.

I don't think I actually went to the bathroom. All I remember is taking another Benadryl and creeping off into one of the hotel's side parlors, where I sat down on a tufted satin couch. I deliberated with great intensity over whether the potted dwarf mandarin-orange tree beside the couch was real. I tore off a couple of leaves to check, rolling them between my fingers, sniffing. Then I curled up and passed out.

I woke up to find my mother sitting next to me on the couch, her fingers cupped over my warm forehead. My arm was asleep from serving as a pillow for my head. I'd drawn my knees up within my dress, stretching the velvet out of shape.

“Did you tell anyone?” I asked. “Don't tell anyone.”

My father came over and crouched down, his dress uniform hunching up awkwardly around his shoulders.

“Do you need me to take you in?” he asked. “It's absolutely no problem if you want to go in.” What I did not know was that he'd just discovered that in actuality, our rental car was completely blocked in behind the other wedding guests.